A short absence: burning computers and my first Tyranid conversion

Now this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there and I'll tell you how my computer tried to burn my house down.

The Fresh Prince of Heresy

OK, so it wasn't quite as dramatic as all that.  My computer did die and turned my life upside down for a few days though, leaving me with no way to get any blogging done.  Good thing I already completed my part of our first Adventures in Airbrushing post before the crash.  Details and a some Nid converting after the break.


So there I was in the Silithus Desert fulfilling the prophecy taking a break and playing some Borderlands when I noticed this strange smell.  It smelled familiar, the same smell as when my power supply crapped out on me on my previous computer.  I think to myself "ah crap, something is wrong.  I better turn off my computer befo- *computer dies* ... ahhhhhhh crap."  So that's how I found myself without a computer.  It's a good thing I have my Droid or I would have really been boned.  Long story short (sort of short at least), I swapped out a bunch of parts, including a MoBo transplant, from the spare computer which is functional but missing a video card and we just don't have room to set it up.  At that point I knew it was not the mother board or the power supply so I started unplugging one thing at a time until the computer would show some sign of life again.  When I discovered that it was the video card that was killing my comp I let out a huge sigh of relief since that was pretty much the best case scenario at that point.  If my CPU, RAM, or mother board went bad I would have to really want to replace all three, but since it was the video card I could get away with just replacing 1 part.  One trip to Fry's later, I had a shiny new video card that was a huge upgrade from my 4 year old card and I didn't have to break the bank.  Come to think of it, pretty much everything in my computer is over 4 years old and still running strong.  Huzzah for Newegg and knowing how to build your own computer!  Yeah, I'm thrifty in all my hobbies.

Ooooooh, shiny!  Riding the cutting edge of cost/performance efficiency.

After picking up my new card I swung by the FLGS and picked up a box of Termagants because I really wanted to work on my paint scheme.  I got my computer up and running again, fooled around with it a little bit and then started working on my other new toys.  My original intention was to get a few models put together so I can finally start testing out my paint scheme on some actual Tyranids and not the "Tyranorks" that I have been using but my inner modeler came out and demanded that I do some converting instead.  I wanted to be able to swap weapons between the standard fleshborer and the devourer so I began pondering how to magnetize the model for weapon swaps.  Now any Tyranid player knows you will probably end up with approximately one metric buttload of 'gants, especially if you plan on running Tervigons at any point.  I had to figure out how to do the conversion with as few magnets as possible or I would be chewing through magnets faster than a Trygon through guardsmen.  I came up with a way of magnetizing the arm sockets so that I would only have to use 2 magnets per model but I knew I could do better than that.  Then I came up with an ingenious plan that would allow me to do weapon swaps without using any magnets at all.

I passed my pinning test... or is it pinning check?  I'm too lazy to check the rule book for semantics.

By chopping up the guns and frankensteining them back together using two paper clip pins, I was able to swap weapons without using any magnets at all.  And as a bonus, I will have supercharged extra-cool looking fleshborers.  It's not exactly stock, but you can clearly tell what type of gun it is.

Fleshborer deluxe.

Devilgant blasts some Ozzy and yells "ROCK 'N ROLL!" \,,/ >_< \,,/

The weapons need a little smoothing out; maybe a little filing, maybe a little greenstuff to make them fit better, but this will at least give you an idea of how they will look.  I'll share some more pictures with a few different angles below and that's about all I have for now.  I plan on making a tutorial on how to do this soon and I will also have some actual Tyranids painted up to test my color scheme if I can tear myself away from modeling for 2 minutes.  Also coming soon: more Adventures in Airbrushing with air compressors.  This is Chaosheade signing off.  Catch you on the flip side.  

There's a hole in my bucket gun!

It's possible that he's compensating for something.

It may not be THE Great Devourer but I've got his little cousin here.

Say hello to my little friend!